Roche and Precision System Science, Co., Ltd (PSS) have announced the signing of an exclusive agreement to develop and manufacture a fully automated emulsion PCR instrument for Roche’s portfolio of next-generation sequencing platforms. It is intended to support Roche’s GS Junior and GS FLX+ systems as well as the sequencing platforms that Roche is currently developing.

Until now, upfront preparation of genomic samples has been a time-consuming and complicated manual process within the sequencing workflow. The new instrument will be designed to streamline the sample preparation workflow by automating the entire emulsion PCR process thereby reducing the total hands-on time from several hours to a few minutes.

“This partnership aims to address one of the key needs of sequencing customers,” said Dan Zabrowski, Head of Roche Applied Science. “The automated solution will not only improve the efficiency of laboratory workflows, but also increase the reproducibility of results by eliminating manual workload. This development program has made great progress over the last year, and we are looking forward to working with PSS because they offer outstanding expertise and have a strong track record in developing fully automated solutions.”

“We are delighted that PSS and Roche are expanding their long-standing relationship in automated DNA extraction to the challenging field of DNA sequencing,” said Hideji Tajima, President of PSS. “Preparing samples for sequencing is a complex, high-skill process that continues to hamper broader use of the technology. We believe that together PSS and Roche will be able to develop an automated instrument that helps overcome this obstacle and promote greater use of advanced sequencing systems.”

The agreement builds on a long-term reciprocal relationship between Roche and PSS. The two companies first started to collaborate on automated DNA extraction fifteen years ago, a partnership that resulted in the successful development and marketing of nucleic acid purification products.